Bladed Shield
by esama
Summary: They came seemingly from nowhere and spoke languages no one had heard of - and yet, somehow, looking at them was like looking into a mirror. Ancient Egypt AU, Slash, Seto x Yugi and possibly others, some oocness
1. Part 1

Warnings; Slash, Reality-timetravelish Alternate Reality, slash, some mild angst, slash, some OOCness, slash and, let's throw in a scifi warning there too just to be on the safe side. Oh, and geography and history fail.

**Bladed Shield**

**Part I  
**

In truth, when Marik send a word to the capital that he would be bringing with him some suspicious individuals and that pharaoh Atemu and high priest Seth should be on high alert, Atemu himself didn't really think much of it. The capital was well guarded and it was nothing in comparison to the guard of the palace - and his last line of defence, Seth, was undefeated in all manner of battlefields. Atemu didn't worry - he never had, as he had never had any reason for it.

"Sometimes I wonder if we're giving you a false sense of security," Seth sighed, noting his utter lack of worry.

"A false sense of security, Seth? I think it's very much real," Atemu answered. But they both knew that wasn't it, at least, not completely. He did feel secure and most likely would - he had witnessed Seth and the palace guards in action too many times to ever doubt their strengths and talents. They were best in the land, and with Seth, generals Marik, Jono and Honda at their lead, they were especially good... but major part of his utter lack of concern came from the fact that, somewhere deep inside, he didn't particularly care.

A man who went to bed every night, praying that morning would never come, and who lingered in that bed every morning, wishing the world away, didn't really care about threats. Ever since he had been just a boy, Atemu hadn't feared death. And at every point of his life afterwards, he would've welcomed it with open arms - he still did, after ten years of pain and bitterness.

His attempts to hide it were poor to say at least, but he made the effort - for Seth's sake, and for the sake of his loyal subjects and citizens. Atemu knew that he was considered a good Pharaoh. Maybe it was a side effect of his own weaknesses, but he was ultimately a little better than almost all his predecessors because unlike almost all of the rest, he didn't have the qualities that made Pharaoh bad. Selfishness, greed, self indulgence and self-admiration. He lacked them all. And as distracting himself by throwing himself into the political and economical issues was often all he could do to keep his mind off from his constant aching, he had gained something of an uncanny skill with minding his nation at precise and general levels. People thought him selfless and strong for it - when in truth he was binding his time day by day.

Not that it mattered whether he did or not. Seth, the brilliant merciless man he was, would never let him die.

"It's not like Marik to get excited over individuals," he mused to Seth, after he had finished latest of his meetings. They had been waiting for the word about the General's return for some days now. Marik had just recently taken his annual trip to Ished to compete in the Tournament of Strength, which attracted fighters all around the world both because of its challenge and because of the prize one won for winning. Marik had been the undisputed champion for four years in a row - though only because Seth never competed. Usually Marik stayed at Ished for couple of weeks afterwards, taking time to have unofficial matches with those he hadn't gotten the chance to battle against in the tournament, but whom he still wanted to test his strength against. not this time - the word of his return had came only day after the tournament, meaning he had left Ished the morning after - with his two suspicious individuals, according to the message he had sent.

"No, it isn't," Seth agreed, kneeling on the polished floor just before Atemu's throne, and reaching out for the Pharaoh's bandaged ankle. Atemu frowned but said nothing, as the high priest gently lifted the bandaged foot, rubbing the skin beneath with strong, careful thumbs. "It has to be something singularly interesting for him to take interest in. We will see when he gets there."

Atemu nodded, leaning his head to his knuckles and watching how the priest massaged his useless foot. For a moment he wondered, not for the first time, what had given his pain away this time. Had he been frowning, wincing? Had he given it away with expression or a gesture - or had Seth, after years of tending to him, developed a sense for his agony? "He should be here by now - it has been two weeks and if they are travelling by camel as Marik said they would be, they should have arrived couple of days ago -" he cut off abruptly as Seth accidentally bent his foot slightly, sending a spike of sharp, white pain up along his leg and thigh. "Careful," he hissed.

"My apologies," Seth whispered, grimacing and gently smoothing his hand over the path the pain had gone, loosening the tensed muscles. "The path from Ished toMemphisisn't entirely safe one - there are bandits and robbers hidden away in the caves in-between. It might be that Marik's party were ambushed."

"Hm," Atemu answered, not entirely convinced. Everyone knew what Marik looked like - and only an idiot tried to rob him. Even if Marik was carrying the prize money from the tournament with him - which was easily enough to support a humble man for the rest of his life - no one would've taken that risk. "Maybe his suspicious party members did something?" he asked, though not really believing that either.

"We will see when they get here," Seth answered after a moment. "I am sure they will arrive soon."

"Do you know something I don't, cousin?" Atemu asked idly.

The high priest smiled, and very gently placed Atemu's bandaged foot down before reaching for the other one. "Nothing, I assure you, that would give insight into this matter. But Marik is head strong - and his letter seemed very certain."

"True," Atemu murmured, and closed his eyes for a moment, just enjoying the feel of the other's fingers, loosening the muscles of his ever painful feet. After a moment, he opened them again and turned his attention the great windows that lined the throne room's side. Beyond them there was the balcony garden that had been made just for him, after his father had died - where, despite the fact that they were several floors above the actual garden, the floor was lined with earth, and flowers and trees grew and bloomed. A place where he could enjoy a semblance of nature - without ever touching the actual ground, and without ever being as open and vulnerable as he would've been on the actual palace garden.

All his duties for the day had been attended to. He had met the nobles who had had something to say or plea or discuss. He had looked over his letters and contracts, all paper work was done. Since the completion of the water channels of Abydos, a project that had taken him a good month to plan and organize, there had been nothing to occupy all of his time - only bits and pieces here and there, leaving him for hours without much to do. There should have been more - there would've been more, a Pharaoh's work was ceaseless and endless... and had he been like his father, he most likely would've never gotten any rest from it.

But very little actual work managed to get past through Seth's vigorous screening process. In a certain way, Atemu didn't mind. Seth had the authority and the intelligence and of course Atemu had special advisers and overseers who attended to the smaller things and only brought the important decisions and final results to Atemu. That way he was saved from over taxing himself - and he knew, from experience that still sometimes haunted him, back when he had first became a pharaoh and had nearly worked himself to early grave, that it was better this way.

But the periods of boredom in between were painful.

"Do you wish to go to the garden?" Seth asked, his hands moving up and down along the back of Atemu's leg, loosening a tightness there Atemu hadn't even noticed.

"I don't know what I want," the Pharaoh answered softly and smiled at the look the other gave him. "Aside from the obvious, which will never happen," he added, wincing a little as Seth carefully lowered his foot and the feel of the coolness of the stone beneath his throne made his toes automatically flex away from it. Atemu let out a soft hiss and used his hands to lift himself into a better position on the throne.

"I would give you my legs, if I could," the high priest murmured, reaching forward and lifting the hem of Atemu's robes out of the way so that he could place a kiss on the white band bandage covering the Pharaoh's knee.

"I know you would," Atemu answered, sighing and reaching out to stroke his fingers over the priest's cheek. He doubted he would ever accept such a trade, though - not from Seth. He had already taken so much away from his cousin by forcing the man to chain himself into his person and never attain a life of his own.

They were quiet for a moment, Atemu enjoying the warmth of Seth against his useless leg and Seth remaining still there, under the touch of his hand. The moment was eventually broken, when a heavy knock echoed through the throne room, the guard beyond the doors announcing his intention of stepping inside. At the sound of it, Seth gently but efficiently pulled the hem of Atemu's robes back down and stood up, taking his place at seat on the right side of Atemu's throne.

The doors were opened, and one of the two guards stationed outside the throne room doors stepped inside. "General Marik is here to see you, lord Pharaoh," the man said, bowing. "Do you wish to grant him entrance?"

"Let him enter," Atemu agreed, glancing at Seth somewhat amusedly and smoothing one hand over the front of his robes as the guard stepped back. "Speak of the devil."

"Indeed," the high priest agreed, as the doors were opened wider and Marik, spiky haired, tanned and still dressed into a traveller's cloak, entered.

"General. We were just talking about you. I trust your journey went well?" Atemu asked, as the general strode forward without any pretence of humility. Normally, people entering his throne room bowed, often dropped down to their knees, but not Marik - and despite how it made Seth always glower angrily, Atemu didn't begrudge him for it. It was... nice to have around him a man who had no illusions about Atemu's supposed strength and who met his eyes without hesitation.

"A small ambush on the way, your majesty, nothing more," the General answered, looking mildly irritated and slightly... worried, if it could be believed. "A couple of days after leaving Ished, we encountered a criminal-slave caravan and my companions, the ones I mentioned in the letter, decided to buy a man from the caravan. I suspect that the slave-traders and slaves saw the amount of money my companions were carrying with them, and got greedy. They ambushed us couple of days back at the Efemash oasis."

Atemu frowned, not particularly surprised to hear Marik give an unprompted report - that was simply how the man was like, completely indifferent to the customs of greetings and polite banter. "Were there casualties?"

"Only on their part. My companions turned out to be... rather efficient on the battle field. There was a serious injury, however, which stalled our speed somewhat in the final days," Marik said, frowning. "Master Kaiba was shot by an arrow, it pierced his lung and he nearly died. His slave managed to stabilise his condition and it looks like he will make it, but the injury was serious and will take time to recover from - unless you would be willing to lend Teana to assist them."

"By all means," Atemu nodded, sharing a look with Seth, who simply raised an eyebrow. "But... If the arrow pierced his lung, how can he still be alive?"

Marik shook his head, making a complicated expression of unease, confusion and awe. "His slave, Yugi, is very resourceful and very headstrong," he answered in very odd tone. "If your majesty wouldn't mind, I will go get Teana. Waiting will do master Kaiba no favours."

"Of course,"Atemu nodded, and after striking his fist against his chest in quick salute, Marik turned briskly and strode out of the room.

"Well, that was interesting," Seth mused, as the doors closed behind the general.

"Have you ever seen Marik going out his way to help anyone?" Atemu asked, turning to him.

"Never. Even when his sister was attacked, he didn't seem to care," the high priest agreed, folding his arms. "I wonder who this master Kaiba is."

"And his slave, Yugi... They have to be something special to invoke such a response in our heartless general. But I imagine that once master Kaiba's injury is sorted out by Teana, we will find out," Atemu mused and shifted in his seat. Even with the light massage, his legs were aching again - and sitting in the hard throne wasn't helping. "Now, I believe I would like to retire for a while, take a moment to rest," he said. "Seth, if you would be so kind..."

"Of course," the high priest said, quickly standing up and reaching over the hand rest of Atemu's throne, to slither his arms around the Pharaoh's back and under his thighs. In single smooth lift, the taller and infinitely so much stronger man had lifted the handicapped ruler to his arms. As Atemu, long since used to it and having lost any embarrassment he might have once felt about it years ago, relaxed, the high priest carried him out of the throne room.

Whoever master Kaiba was, it could wait a couple of hours.

xx

Okay, so. This will be a sort of AU rewrite of one of my earlier Yugioh fanfics, which was also AU, called _My Shield, My Sword._ You don't need to know that one to read this one, though it might give you some insights - and spoil some of the plot of this one. Though this story draws upon the idea behind My Shield, My Sword, it won't be exactly the same by any means, so there are differences - small and big ones. This will be a bit of a self challenge I'll be doing for the next ten to twenty days, I'll write a scene of 2000 words or more, and post it as soon as it's edited, hopefully daily until the story is finished. So, chapters will be short.

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	2. Part 2

Warnings; Slash, Reality-timetravelish Alternate Reality, slash, some mild angst, slash, some OOCness, slash and, let's throw in a scifi warning there too just to be on the safe side. Oh, and geography and history fail.

**Bladed Shield**

**Part II**

Teana had been part of Pharaoh Atemu's palace for years now, ever since she had entered Khemet in fact. She had always thought, when she has been younger and when she had been thinking of the unthinkable and of going to Khemet, that she wouldn't fit in. An Indian woman in such a place, it didn't seem like a comfortable fit. But she had wanted to travel - the distant sands and the mysterious waves of the riverNile... they had seemed so interesting, so alluring. Like the country she had never seen had been calling for her.

In a way she thought that actually might have been it. At that time, Khemet had been calling for her and people like her - healers all over the world had been called in, invited by the palace, even brought in by Khemet's vessels. Hundreds of healers had flockedMemphisat the time she had entered it - called to attend to the daunting task of healing the recently crowned Pharaoh Atemu.

Hundreds of attempts had failed, hundreds of healers and mystics - and more than few complete fakes - had been send away with the Palace's and the high priest's thanks - except for Teana who, by using her specialised Aura-based healing style, had managed a small miracle. Not a complete healing - that, Teana now suspected, was impossible. But for few minutes, she had managed to take the Pharaoh's constant pain away.

She had become the head physician and the official palace healer after that - something she had thought could never happen. Back home, in that small, insignificant backwater village she was from, she was nothing. One more daughter in a family of too many already, sent to aide the local healer for extra money and to get her out of the way. She had learned healing arts without intention, by accident and, in her country's terms, she would've never made it as a healer. She was, after all, a woman, and women did not have place in such upstanding occupations.

She would never stop thanking Khemet, Pharaoh Atemu and high priest Seth for the chance and for the honour.

Nor would she ever stop blaming herself for never managing to do more than grand the ruler of her new home land more than few scarce moments of respite.

"Master Teana," her assistant called from the front section of her quarters. "General Marik is here to see you."

"Thank you, Sheriti," Teana nodded, and then frowned. She had thought the general wasn't in the city at the time - wasn't this time for the annual Tournament of Strength? And... What did the man want from her? She didn't think they had ever exchanged a single word with each other - not even when the man's own sister had been injured, or when the man himself had been injured. For a man like Marik, healers were not as much people as they were a resource to use, and that on top of the man's already rather brusque nature...

Curious more than worried, she stood up from the pillow she had been sitting on, and smoothed her hand over the front of her dress, before leaving her office to see what the general wanted. She was only mildly surprised to see him in not the best of get up - or smelling too nice. It looked like the man was fresh from camel's back. "General. What can I do for you?"

"There has been an injury," the man answered, scowling. "I require your assistance. I will pay for it, if it comes to that."

Teana blinked, almost taken aback. He required her assistance - required? And pay? For a moment she was tempted to concentrate and try and see if there were any changes to his aura - because this was not the type of talk she had learned to expect from the types of Marik. But, by the looks of the seriousness in the man's eyes, this wasn't the time for that. "I am at your service, no payment required," she assured, moving back to get her bag and supplies. "What is the nature of this injury and where is the injured party?" would she need gauze, potions, herbs...

"A man was shot by an arrow - it pierced clean through him, puncturing his lung. The man is currently in stable condition and his slave assured me he'd make it, but the healing process will take weeks, maybe months," Marik answered, folding his arms. "I believe you can speed that up?"

Teana glanced at the man, for a moment tempted to ask him if he was serious - pierced lung? And the man still lived? And was stable? "Is his slave a healer?" she asked then, figuring that had to be it.

"Of sorts," Marik nodded.

"Very well. Let us not waste time, then," Teana nodded and hoisted the bag to her shoulder. "Sheriti, with me. I might require you to fetch me supplies depending on the condition of the patient."

"Of course, master Teana," the girl nodded, and quickly fell in step with her, as she turned to follow Marik who had already turned around and strode out of the quarters.

As Teana caught up with the brusque general, she began asking questions about the injury. When had it happened, had the injured party passed out, how much rest had he gotten, how much sleep, was there any inflammation, any infection. Marik answered with surprising preciseness, telling her it had been couple of days, and that the man had indeed passed out, but that he had eaten normally and drank aplenty since his injury, that there was no infection as far as he could see, but that he had been informed that there was some internal bleeding. Marik was even able to tell her that the patient had a slightly high temperature, but was pretty coherent.

It wasn't surprising that the man knew it all, or remembered it. You didn't get the position of a general if you were unobservant or forgetful after all. But the amount of care required to notice all that surprised the healer more than slightly. Marik had never come across as particularly caring man to her - and neither had any of his underlings. Even when the man's own sister had been injured, all he had said about the matter was, "I think someone knifed her," and that had been pretty much it.

It wasn't her place, but it really made her curious about the status of the injured party. Who could the man be, to make Marik so interested?

"Here," Marik said, as he led her into his own private quarters. Teana frowned slightly, now starting to wonder if it was some sort of personal connection between Marik and the injured man, something more than she was allowed to be curious about. She pushed the thought and all others aside, however, as she saw a basket of bloody bandages in the side of the door, waiting to be taken away to be cleaned by the servants. This wasn't time for musing - not when there was a serious injury to attend to.

"What took you so long?" a young, white haired man with a slave's collar asked, scowling from where he sat at the window sill of the room. The general had a slave? And one so lacking of humility?

"Shut up, Bakura," Marik answered without giving him much a look and instead turned to Teana. "This way," he said, motioning to what Teana suspected was his bedroom. As she followed him, she couldn't help but notice that the slave, Bakura, quickly detached himself from the windowsill and followed with slightly nervous frown on his face.

The air in the bedroom was surprisingly fresh considering that someone there was seriously injured. People usually had the bad sense of closing all the windows and blocking the light when ever there was someone injured or sick - like stuffy, overly warm air somehow made it better. Here, though, the curtains weren't only open but tied back, and the windows were all wide open, letting the entire room flood with light and clean air.

Then Teana's eyes were drawn to the large bed in the middle of the room - and all thought of praising whoever had been sensible enough to open the windows, fled from her mind. In fact, all thought fled from her and for a moment all she could do was stare in blank incomprehension, positive she wasn't seeing what she was seeing - and it was such an overwhelming sound that she didn't even hear Sheriti's gasp.

It was Pharaoh Atemu and high priest Seth! Except... except they weren't. They couldn't be. For one, the man who looked so much like the Pharaoh was sitting on his knees on top of the bed - a position that would've caused unimaginable pain with the Pharaoh's condition. And secondly, the Pharaoh look-alike was also wearing a collar - slightly different from the usual, metallic design slaves wore, but it was still unmistakably a collar.

As she noted this, the other differences also made themselves apparent. The clothes, for one, were much too humble and much too simple - not that the man who looked like high priest was wearing any, by the looks of it, aside from the bloodied bandage covering his chest. And the Pharaoh look-alike was too pale, much paler than any person Teana had ever seen inMemphis, par from some foreigners from distant lands. And so was the man who looked so much like high priest Seth. And though the features and the hair for the most part was the same, there was something different in their eyes. Not the colour or the shape - they were almost exactly alike - but something in them... they didn't look right.

"Teana!" Marik snapped at her, making the man who looked so much like Pharaoh Atemu look up sharply, sudden suspicion and wariness in his amethyst eyes. The man who looked like the high priest turned his eyes to her as well - they were bleary with pain and fatigue.

"Who is...?" the high priest look-alike asked weakly.

"The palace healer and her assistant," Marik answered, glaring at Teana who swallowed, her mind still reeling. "If she can get over herself, she can help you."

The pale copy of the pharaoh narrowed his eyes suspiciously bowing his torso like he was about to spring into an attack, but the man who looked like Seth just sighed, and closed his eyes. He said something in a foreign language, making the other impossible man relax, but only slightly. "Let her," the man who looked like the high priest said.

Teana swallowed, and under the glares of general Marik and the man who looked like the Pharaoh, she stepped hesitatingly forward. "For abyss's sake, woman, do something!" the white haired slave, Bakura, snarled almost directly behind her, sending her few more steps back. It helped, oddly enough, because as she came closer the man who looked like the Pharaoh shifted back, still staying close enough to interfere if necessary, but giving her the space required.

It was mostly the sight of the freshness of the blood on the injured man's bandages that made her finally push the shock aside and get to work. "Sheriti, get me some hot water," she ordered, and with what sounded like panicked whimper, her assistant hurried away to comply. Placing her bag aside, Teana reached out to test the injured man's temperature and perspiration before checking his pulse. It was... incredibly steady and strong, considering his injury.

Frowning slightly, Teana placed her hand just half an inch atop the bandage and closed her eyes, concentrating. Merciful heavens, the man who looked like Seth certainly had an Aura to suit - it was overwhelmingly strong, almost too strong for her to get through it. But in his aura she could feel the injury and that, indeed, despite it's nature it wasn't serious. It had been, she could feel it, at the time the man had been injured and the arrow had pierced his body, he had nearly died. But something had happened soon after, something had stalled the effect - something had forced his body stable, and to not die. It was almost as if the man had been given potions and herbs much more potent than anything Teana had ever heard of, and yet there were no traces of anything like that in his blood. The man was medicine - without medicine.

Frowning, she concentrated onto the injury. It had been a fairly clean wound. By the feel of it, the arrow had lodged inside the man for a moment and had been pulled out with fairly minimal damage - but the wound was still severe. And if the sound of his ragged, wet breathing hadn't told her already that his lung was filled with blood, the feel of it was clear enough proof. But there was something strange. The wound was healing, slowly and, dare she say it, unnaturally. There should be inflammation, there should be damage caused by the bleeding - and there should be world of infection by now. Arrows, after all, weren't the most sanitary of weapons and more often than not people tipped theirs in poisons. After two days and more, the wound shouldn't been much worse - but it felt almost fresh. Fresh and somehow healing.

"Can you do anything?" Marik asked, while the Pharaoh look-alike gave her a considering look and reached out to touch the high priest look-alike's shoulder gently.

"Yes. By gods, yes. This is..." Teana swallowed. She was beyond amazed. When the general had said that the patient's state was stable, he hadn't been kidding. Which for her - and the patient - was extremely good.

Teana's healing was, in essence, perfectly natural - it took what the body had and made it stronger and faster, using the body's own abilities to do it. Under her talents, wounds healed faster and bones repaired themselves, completely natural but sped up by her power. Usually, though, it wasn't that simple - because wounds tended to more than cuts, they tended to be the breeding grounds of infections, and if she tried healing an infected wound, she ultimately also made the infection grow faster. That was why she always had to clear the infections away first with salves and alcohol and all sort of concoctions - which, when wounds were internal like in this case, made it very difficult and very lengthy process.

This case should have been like that. She should have had to spend hours of cleaning the body and the wound to make sure that she wouldn't accidentally make the injury worse - and often that was procedure that could kill the patient. But this... this was absolutely incredible. The wound was clean - perfectly clean. She could pour all her healing power right down to it, without any risk of making it worse. Had that ever happened before?

"Who did this? I've never felt anything like this - someone has been... healing this man, somehow. Did you do this?" She asked, turning to the silent slave who looked like the Pharaoh. "How did you do this? This is... this is beyond impossible -"

"Don't bother. Yugi doesn't speak our language," Bakura, who had circled around the bed, said.

"And leave your questions for later - heal master Kaiba first, if you can." Marik agreed, scowling at her.

"Wait," the injured man said weakly, opening his eyes. "W-what will you do?" he asked, the accent in his voice more clear now, as he spoke more. "How will you -?" the sentence cut off, as he was taken over by a bout of wet, miserable coughs that made the pale slave at his side shift anxiously closer, reaching for a cup in which the man could cough the blood into.

"I will… I will use the power of my aura to speed up the natural healing process of your body. It will take a moment and should be relatively painless, but it will leave you a little weak and tired for a couple of days," Teana answered, after the slave who looked like the Pharaoh had wiped his master's lips with a wad of cloth. The healer glanced up as her assistant returned. "First I need to unwrap the wound and clean it - it must be kept clear of all materials and elements, otherwise it might grow right into them."

The man gave him a bleary, slightly suspicious look before glancing at the slave, Yugi, saying something in odd, foreign language. The pale copy of the Pharaoh frowned, answering in the same language, before nodding. "Yugi will do it," Kaiba said tiredly, and before Teana could object, the slave had already moved forward to undress the bandage and to gently lift the wounded man into a seated position.

The sight was beyond unbelievable - and drove in more than anything else had so far, that this man wasn't the Pharaoh. The way he moved, how he sat on his knees and moved his feet, how he actually _lifted_ this man, who looked like high priest Seth... It was something the Pharaoh simply didn't have the physical capability to do.

Then the slave, after undressing the bloodied bandage and leaving master Kaiba's injured chest completely bare, did something that made Teana forget all that. He lifted his own hand to his mouth and licked it wetly, before placing the now moistened palm onto the wound, making Kaiba sigh sharply. Teana gasped moving to stop him - only to be stopped by the pale slave's look.

"Don't," Kaiba said weakly, giving her a look. By the looks of it, the man was not in least bothered by the fact that his slave was cleaning his wound with his saliva. "He knows what he's doing better than you."

"That is not good for the wound!" Teana answered, reaching out and touching the slave's wrist with intention of pulling it back - only to stop at the feel of it. "What..."

"Just let him do it," Marik said, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. "I don't know how it works, but Yugi's been keeping master Kaiba alive for a while now, he knows what he's doing."

Teana didn't answer, just pulled her hand back and stared at her fingers, wondering if she was having a dream. The feel of it, the feel of the slave's skin...

"Master Teana? Do you need the water?" her assistant, who had been holding the bucket of water for the entire time, asked nervously.

"No, Sheriti, it doesn't seem I do," Teana answered, and watched with growing incomprehension as the slave cleaned the wounds of his master, who leaned almost limply against him. It made no sense. None of this made any sense.

"It's finished," master Kaiba gasped after a moment, as Yugi pulled his fingers away from the exit wound on his back, and instead moved to only support the man from behind, holding him gently by the shoulders and letting him rest his head against his own shoulder. "Do you thing, healer."

Swallowing, Teana moved forward, placing her hands on the man's back and chest, over the two wounds. As far as she knew it wasn't possible - but it seemed that Kaiba had been right. The wounds were clean, very nearly purified despite the fact that they shouldn't be. Saliva wasn't very hygienic normally, but in this case it seemed work better than any medicine Teana had ever used.

What was that slave? How was this possible?

Frowning, Teana closed her eyes and summoned her power. _'Don't think, Teana. Just heal,'_ she whispered to herself and her aura and sent it spiralling down from her palms into the wound, into the flesh surrounding it. As master Kaiba let out a surprised breath and the slave Yugi murmured something in his foreign tone, the wound begun healing, growing whole where it had been torn and growing anew. Teana was so concentrated onto the healing that she almost missed the prodding of something else, in the man's body - like another person's aura... except very different.

As she finished the healing, she almost accidentally examined that feeling of another aura, and followed it to its source - before pulling her slightly shaking hands hurriedly away. As the newly healed skin and new, pink scar were revealed to have taken place the wound, she couldn't help but stare at the slave Yugi in growing anxiety.

She didn't know what he was - but she was pretty sure that he wasn't human.

xx

Alrighty. Small changes and big big changes. I am kinda afraid that the whole saliva thing was a bit weird but... but but it just works. Well, anyway. Moar to come.

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	3. Part 3

Warnings; Slash, Reality-timetravelish Alternate Reality, slash, some mild angst, slash, some OOCness, slash and, let's throw in a scifi warning there too just to be on the safe side. Oh, and geography and history fail.

**Bladed Shield**

**Part III**

After confused Teana and her equally confused assistant had left, Marik stayed, watching how Yugi tended to his now healed master. In the past couple of days the slave had been tending to Master Kaiba with incredible single mindedness, and by the looks of how the slave still hovered about the man, even though the injury was gone, made Marik wonder if it had been like that from the beginning and he hadn't just noticed it before.

Kaiba and Yugi made an odd pair, though. There was no doubt about that - and that Marik had known since the beginning.

While the pale slave, who looked so much like the lord Pharaoh, helped his master up from Marik's bed and towards the bathroom so that they could clean up, the general ventured absently to his sitting room, taking a seat to wait. He had met the pair in the Tournament of Strength some days back - and thinking back to it, he still wasn't quite sure what had happened. Master Kaiba had entered Yugi to the tournament - a notion which seemed absolutely ludicrous, considering how petite the slave was. Or it had, anyway, until the young slave had made quick work of all his opponents and then, without Marik ever getting a chance to land a decent hit, had taken the general down as well.

The worse thing about it was that Yugi had bowed in apology at the beginning at the end.

"So, looks like he's fine now," Bakura murmured, taking a seat at the window sill and lifting his feet off the floor. "I guess your healer woman wasn't that bad."

Marik glanced at the slave and didn't answer. He didn't know what to think about Kaiba and Yugi - but Bakura was no less confusing. Not the man himself - or youth, as he couldn't be that much older than Yugi - but the way he had joined Kaiba's entourage.

Turning his eyes away, the General noted that someone had brought fresh fruits to his room, and idly reached out to grab one. They hadn't gotten to eat much anything that was actually good on the journey, and in the last days Yugi had more or less commandeered anything slightly good in their stores. Not that Marik would've argued even if he had minded - not after seeing the berserker the young slave had became, after his master had gotten injured.

Marik had made his mark as being a relatively merciless general - but he had never sown through assailants the way Yugi had. It had been as beautiful as it had been terrifying - and it had cemented the Generals decision that, whatever Kaiba and his slave were or where-ever they came from, they weren't people to mess with.

As the water begun to slosh in the bathroom, and muffled tones of Kaiba's words sounded through the door, the general loosened the neckline of his robe. He wouldn't have minded a bath himself, but he didn't mind the wait - dirt and him were old friends, veterans of many battle fields.

"So. What will happen now?" Bakura asked after long period of quiet, fingering his collar absently, digging his fingers beneath the metal.

"Now?" Marik asked thoughtfully, biting into the fruit. He had no idea. He had originally persuaded master Kaiba to take the journey with him to Memphis because he had felt it to be his duty to take him and his slave to the Pharaoh. He was a crude and cruel man at occasion, but he knew his duty and when two men walked around looking almost exactly like the Pharaoh and his high priest, it was something that needed to be reported to the ruler. Now, though, now he didn't know.

Yugi had saved his life that night, when they had been ambushed at the oasis. His, Bakura's and most of all Kaiba's, though how that worked, Marik wasn't entirely sure. Without the slave there, the assailants would've overwhelmed them easily enough - and Marik had no doubts about what would've happened then. It wasn't like robbers were known for their mercy, and who wouldn't have liked to be known as the man who killed general Marik - or Yugi, who had won the tournament of strength? Even if money had been most likely all they had been after originally, the reputation they would've gotten from the deal most likely had interested at least a few of them. Not to mention that leaving witnesses behind was never good for robbers.

But that was before they had made the mistake of actually managing to get past Yugi's guard to shoot Kaiba.

Marik closed his eyes, for a moment just remembering the fight, the awe striking sight of Yugi dancing among the attackers, blood strained and infuriated, eyes glowing with unholy rage. If there was such a thing as living death, it had possessed Yugi in that moment. It was a memory Marik would cherish until the day he died...

And which made him somewhat cautious about what would happen next. He had to report to the Pharaoh, had to take Kaiba and Yugi to see him. What the Pharaoh would decide then... that was out of his hands. All he could hope for the Pharaoh's sake that he wouldn't decide to do anything stupid - though knowing Atemu, he probably wouldn't. One didn't get to become such a well liked Pharaoh with Atemu's disability with stupidity, after all.

As Marik finished the fruit, the door to the bathroom was opened and Yugi, wearing only a dark loin cloth and his collar, stepped out, holding Kaiba's dirty clothes. While Marik wondered how someone so small and so slim could have such strength in him, the pale slave gave the general a look, lifting the robes slightly and tilting his head to the side in question.

"There's a chest in my room with clean clothes in it, go fetch some for Kaiba from it," Marik ordered Bakura, who bared his teeth at him momentarily before jumping down from the windowsill. The white haired, scarred slave nodded in respect to Yugi, who nodded back with a smile, before the white haired slave hurried off to get the clothing. Marik watched the quick, silent interaction thoughtfully.

When Kaiba had bought Bakura off the slave caravan - who had eventually turned back to rob them - Marik had thought he was only inviting trouble. The slaves of the caravan had been all new and untrained ones, criminals forced into slavery by the decree of law. They weren't the most obedient or useful to have - usually they were only used in mines, under whip more of then that not. But Bakura had turned out to be surprisingly perceptive slave - though, seeing the other slave of his new master turn a fight into a massacre might have had something to do with his new, mellow disposition towards Kaiba and Yugi.

Bakura brought out a pile of Marik's own clothes out and handed them to silent Yugi, who retreated back to the bathroom. A moment later he and Kaiba both stepped out, Kaiba now wearing a white line robe and Yugi having pulled on a dark tunic. The pale slave still hovered at his master's side, by the looks of it ready to move forward to support rather weak looking Kaiba up if needed.

"Feeling better then, master Kaiba?" Marik asked, as the taller man slid down to sit on the divan across him.

"Much, thank you," Kaiba nodded, the accent in his voice a little heavier as he ran his hand through his wet hair and gave the bowl of fruits a look. "I wouldn't mind something to eat, however."

"I can have something delivered," Marik suggested, standing up. "It might take a moment."

"I don't mind the wait," Kaiba answered.

Half an hour later, the servants delivered half a feast to Marik's quarters, with enough food to feed a segment of soldiers. Kaiba didn't seem to mind, however, and neither did Bakura by the looks of how he just attacked the meat - completely ignoring the look Marik gave him. Kaiba said nothing, though, making Marik wonder if he always allowed his slaves to eat from his table. The ones who did eat, at any rate, he added to himself, giving Yugi a look.

He had never seen the petite slave eat - drink on occasion, and sometimes he nibbled on some herbs, but actual food? Never.

"What are your plans now?" the general asked, as they ate.

"My plans, hm," Kaiba murmured, with somewhat cynical smile on his lips. "Bide my time some more, I suppose. But I suspect I should be asking that of you - you brought us here for a reason and I doubt Yugi's fighting skills was it."

"After what happened at the oasis, I rather regret that - but no, they weren't," Marik agreed, leaning back with a bird's leg in his fingers, biting into the meat. "I've been deceiving you somewhat."

Kaiba glanced up, lifting a single eyebrow at him. "I suspected as much," he said, leaning back as well and folding his arms. "I couldn't figure out to what end, however. The way Yugi looks has something to do with it."

"You too," Marik nodded. "I imagine you haven't met Pharaoh Atemu?"

The taller man snorted softly. "No, we haven't been here for that long, I'm afraid," he answered with a wry smile. "I'm sure it would be a great honour."

The general smiled crookedly. Kaiba didn't sound very convincing. "Now I'm curious. If you thought it wasn't being completely honest with you, why did you play along?"

"I figured there would be reason for it, and playing along with be as good way to spend my time as any," Kaiba answered.

"Spend your time," Marik repeated, eyeing him now thoughtfully. it wasn't the first time he had heard Kaiba say that - or something similar, making it sound like he had no where to go and nothing to do and that he was just killing time until... "Are you waiting for something master Kaiba?" the general asked, blinking sharply.

"In a manner of speaking," the taller man agreed, glancing at Yugi who had selected assorted pieces of fruits and vegetables from the meal in front of them into a platter, which he was now insistently handing to his master. Kaiba gave him a glare, which was completely ignored by the pale slave who just eyed him calmly, holding the plate steady. Considering what a strong personality Kaiba usually was, it didn't take him long to give in and accept the plate.

Not that Marik judged him for that. Yugi wasn't a normal slave by any standards and in all battles of will Kaiba always seemed to come second. Considering how obedient and subservient Yugi usually was, the slave was a force to be reckoned with when ever it was Kaiba's health and well being in question.

"Where did you get Yugi?" the general asked, watching as the recently injured man begun making his way through the vegetables. He had been wondering about that for a while now, about what kind of place and what kind of circumstances brewed such creatures as the petite slave, the Pharaohs pale copy.

Kaiba glanced at him, and didn't answer.

_'Well,'_ Marik mused. _'I suppose that was somewhat personal question.'_ Shaking his head, he stood up. "I will go and see the Pharaoh, see if he will be interested in meeting you today. If he isn't and we have to postpone until tomorrow, you may remain in my quarters - or, if you prefer, I will arrange guest quarters for your use."

"Whichever is fine," Kaiba answered, coughing softly and Making Yugi instantly reach for a water goblet for him. He smiled fleetingly at the slave - a true smile, nothing like the wry, crooked smirks he gave to the other people - before taking a small sip. "We wouldn't want to inconvenience you, general, though as things stand I suppose that's the least of your worries."

"As things stand," Marik agreed, somewhat amused, before turning to leave the room. Any other man would've been insulted, even outraged, by his deception - but Kaiba was indeed something special. Truly a master fitting of a slave such as Yugi.

And maybe even someone Marik wouldn't mind making allies with.

xx

Shorter bit this time, but I warned about that. Next scene will hopefully be the meeting.

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	4. Part 4

Warnings; Slash, Reality-timetravelish Alternate Reality, slash, some mild angst, slash, some OOCness, slash and, let's throw in a scifi warning there too just to be on the safe side. Oh, and geography and history fail.

**Bladed Shield**

**Part IV**

Atemu was feeling bleary when Marik came to his office to ask if he'd be willing to meet his guests now. The attempt of resting hadn't really worked and had only left the Pharaoh with somewhat achy side and more than somewhat achy head. It was nothing new however - it was the way he woke up most of mornings after all - so he didn't let it show on his face and merely nodded and informed the general that he had the time.

"In half an hour. The Pharaoh will be seeing master Teana first," Seth interjected before Marik could leave, and Atemu nodded in agreement, used to having Seth step up like this. It had been happening ever since his injury and ever since Seth had became his caretaker, after all - and ten years was long enough time to get used to such things. The concept of having Teana come and make his life a little easier for him was welcome one, too.

After Marik had left to inform his guests of the upcoming meeting or whatever else he was intending to do, Seth send for Teana who arrived with surprising haste, carrying her bag and looking somewhat bewildered. As she bowed low, the sight of her slightly wet hands - no doubt washed hurriedly - made Atemu realise that she had probably been tending to Marik's guest, this mysterious master Kaiba.

"I apologise for bothering you so soon after a patient, Teana. If you are in need of rest -"

"No, no. The case of master Kaiba was... was relatively easy to handle," the dark haired woman quickly assured, almost managing to suppress her quick shudder. "Has his majesty met general Marik's guests yet?"

"No. I will be seeing them soon, however," Atemu nodded, noting silently the way the woman's shoulder's slumped - not with disappointment but relief so palpable that for a moment Atemu wondered if her gift of seeing auras could be transferred.

"Good, that is good," the healer only murmured, before looking up again and smiling. "What can I do for my Pharaoh this day? Are your legs bothering you too much, my lord, should I -?"

"The Pharaoh has a headache," Seth answered, gently removing the light crown Atemu wore and placing it to his desk. "Could you kindly deal with that?"

Teana nodded, placing her bag to the floor and stepping forward. "I'll see what I can do."

As the healer stepped closer and slid her fingers into Atemu's hair, the Pharaoh closed his eyes, anticipating the respite he knew he would soon get. Aside from Seth, Teana was the only human being allowed to touch him - something that had admittedly taken him a while to get used to. Now he blessed it every time it happened because if there were miracles, they grew in Teana's fingertips. As she gently massaged her fingers across his scalp, finding all the spots of tension that he couldn't have pointed even though they were giving him such a hell, the headache was slowly but steadily drained away, leaving his head echoing with its absence and feeling oddly empty.

"Thank you," the Pharaoh whispered with relief, and opened his eyes as the woman withdrew her hands.

"My lord needs a better support for his head and neck as he sleeps," she said, taking something from her bag and handing it to him - a clear glass phial which Atemu had seen often, and which Teana fed him almost periodically. He accepted it without complaint and quickly drained it, smothering a grimace at the bitter, dry taste. The healer smiled, noticing his dislike regardless. "I will see if I can have the palace seamstress design you a better pillow, my liege, your head aches should lessen with one."

"I will look forward to it," Atemu nodded. "Thank you," he said again - and after Teana had given him the usual warning of not drinking anything alcoholic or eating anything that affected the mind for next two hours because it blended badly with the medicine, she took her leave, bowing as she went.

"Perhaps I should have a massager tend to your neck later?" Seth asked, while carefully lifting the crown back to it's place, smoothing Atemu's hair out of the way before running his own hands down the Pharaoh's neck and to his shoulders. They were covered with necklaces and his usual dark blue robe, and he didn't get any skin contact, but Atemu welcomed the touch nonetheless.

"Maybe, but by that time the ache will be gone no doubt," the Pharaoh mused, leaning to his caretaker's touch and smiling. Seth nodded slowly in answer, obviously intending to do it nonetheless. He said nothing more, though, and as a knock echoed through the office, he stepped back once more to the usual watchful distance of one and half steps.

Marik entered without asking and without announcing himself, wearing clean set of clothing and looking like he had taken the time to wash up. That thought didn't catch Atemu's attention quite as well as the two men, trailing after him - one of them even taller than Marik, which was a height only Seth had so far managed to reach, and another much, much shorter than either of them - about Atemu's height, actually, of the height he would've had had he been able to stand...

Only years of training in decorum and handling delicate political meetings made Atemu keep a straight face, as he eyed the two men and saw exactly why Marik had seemed so adamant about the meeting. And, by the looks of it, the two men, Marik's guests, seemed to have a similar realisation - though only Atemu's own, intimate knowledge of Seth's expressions made him notice the slight stiffening of the taller man's shoulders and the widening of his eyes. The shorter man, whoever, openly showed his surprise without trying to hide it, before he quickly narrowed his eyes for a quick, assessing glance around the room.

"Your Majesty, high priest. I present to you, master Kaiba and his slave, Yugi," Marik introduced them, motioning first at the taller man who looked like Seth's distorted reflection, and then at the shorter man who, now that Atemu glanced down from his face, indeed wore a slave's collar - albeit not a metallic one.

"What trickery is this?" Seth demanded, while Atemu leaned slightly back in his seat, taking in the details. He had never thought that his skills of controlling himself would be used in such a situation but he thanked for them, as he managed to quell what would've otherwise been emotional explosion inside him, and instead keep a detached disposition and take in the situation, free of bias.

The similarities were obvious - the facial features were exact same. Seth and master Kaiba could've stood beside each other and looked like mirror reflections as far as their faces went. Distorted reflections, of course, as master Kaiba was much, much paler than Seth was. Seth's hair was also longer - and hidden underneath his headdress - while master Kaiba had a short hair of maybe slightly lighter shade than Seth's. The clothing made an obvious difference - Seth wore the robes of a high priest as he ought to, while master Seto wore a simple white linen robes, secured shut by a blue fabric belt. Their expressions, Atemu noted with some interest, were almost exactly the same, both glared with equal ice and ferocity.

It took him a moment to manage to turn his eyes to the slave - and even longer to actually take in what he was seeing. He was almost struck by odd, mental vertigo as he looked at the slave - who met his eyes calmly and calculatingly - but he smothered the feeling sternly and took in the man's - or youth's - features. Yugi's face... it was so much like his own - impossibly much. Too much for it to be a coincidence. He even had the same hair as Atemu did - only slightly shorter and slightly better tamed. His eyes were of Atemu's own amethyst, though the look in them was foreign - too open and too hidden at the same time. The pale skin of course made a big difference, but not as much as to make him unrecognisable - no, it only seemed to enhance the similarities.

Tearing his eyes away from his counterpart's eyes, Atemu glanced down - to the collar. It was black leather, fastened shut by a silver buckle, slightly wider than usual slave collars but all the more striking for it. Atemu felt irrational outrage for it for a split of a moment, and almost lifted his hand to check his own neck to make sure he wasn't wearing such a thing, but he wrestled the urge to submission and instead glanced further down, to the simple black tunic Yugi was wearing, to the bare thighs and knees below it and to the simple sandals that adorned the slave's otherwise bare feet.

Yugi was standing - on his own strength and without any hint of pain. However this... copy of Atemu had came to be, he had avoided the injury that had forced Atemu to endure a decade of pain and disability.

"I demand an explanation. What kind of magic is this, how -" Seth was saying, as Atemu lifted his jealous gaze from Yugi's perfectly healthy legs and took the pair of the counterparts in full. Master Kaiba was eyeing Seth without any fear, even though the glare Atemu's high priest was giving him was usually enough to make grown men quiver. If anything, the pale copy of the high priest looked irritated.

"Seth, be quiet," Atemu said, quiet but authoritative and Seth fell silent at his side, straightening his back and clenching his hands into tight fists. Master Kaiba lifted a single eyebrow at them, glancing at Atemu's crown then at Seth's less impressive headdress and, after a moment, getting a decisively complex expression as he glanced at his slave. Yugi met his eyes with a slightly disturbed look of his own, in silent communication Atemu couldn't have begun to cipher - but which spoke volumes, nonetheless.

The Pharaoh leaned completely back to rest against the backrest of his chair, and stroked his fingers thoughtfully over his chin. "Whatever you are and however you came to be, myself and Seth were not targeted by it," he said after a moment, gaining a curious look from master Kaiba and confused glance from Seth. Atemu smiled wryly. "You are too different, you do not know us and you are as shocked by this as we are, therefore any plot of replacing us with you was not involved - you would be better informed if that was the case. But if that was not the purpose, then perhaps the means of your existence can are unintentional. What caused this?"

Master Kaiba gave him a look which Atemu could've just barely called approving. "An accident," he simply said, speaking in an accent Atemu had never heard before - and he had thought he had heard them all. "We're not from around here and we're not supposed to be here."

"Hm," Atemu answered, eyeing him for a moment to gauge the truthfulness of his words before nodding. "And I suspect you have no way of returning whence you came from, otherwise you wouldn't be here."

Now Kaiba did look approving - actually, he almost looked oddly satisfied as he glanced between Atemu and Yugi, like comparing them and finding that Atemu had met the criteria. It was a very peculiar thing to witness and to realise. "We could spend a lifetime travelling in this place and never find our way back home," master Kaiba agreed.

Atemu nodded. So he had been right. "You are not from this world," he said, making both Seth and Marik look at him with shock, and then turn to the pale counterparts in realisation. "Or not from this time," Atemu amended. It could be that master Kaiba and Yugi were their reincarnations - and the balance of the world had demanded a role reversal between them, making Kaiba the pharaoh and Yugi the caretaker.

"Very good," Kaiba murmured, now giving Atemu his full attention. "I didn't think anyone of this world was familiar with the theories of alternate realities."

"I'm sure no one is. It's a simple deduction based on the fact that nothing else would make sense," Atemu answered. "You are not copies of us, as you vary too much, and neither are you some form of magical manifestations, as you are alive and you can get injured. You cannot find your home on this world, therefore it must be on another world," he shook his head. "It is not something I have ever heard of, but the universe is large and I wouldn't make the mistake of claiming I knew everything about the mysteries it contains."

"Admirable," master Kaiba agreed - though his tone was almost mocking. "Well, now that that's settled, I guess what follows is what will you do with us," he added, folding his arms. "Obviously we cannot be allowed to run rampant, looking the way we do. Even if we have no intention of getting involved with you or... him," he gave an uneasy look at Seth who narrowed his eyes in answer. "That doesn't mean the risk isn't there."

"No. It doesn't," Atemu agreed thoughtfully. A skilled magician could've easily suppressed master Kaiba's and Yugi's minds beneath their own, and altered their appearance to match Atemu's and Seth's. Of course a take over would've never been that easy, but as Kaiba had said, the risk was still there.

Not to mention that now that Atemu knew what and who they were, he had no intention of letting them out of his sight.

"Tell me, master Kaiba. Have you truly no way to return to your home?"

"With the level of technology in this world... I doubt it. But I am working on the theories. Maybe one day..." the man shook his head, giving his slave a thoughtful look. "But I trust my people back in our world won't stop looking for us. They have the device that sent us here - one day they might figure out a way to bring us back."

"And how long do you think that will take?" Atemu asked thoughtfully.

Kaiba grimaced, looking away. It was an answer enough.

"Well. Until that time, I must insist you remain my guests here, at the palace," the Pharaoh answered. "Your comfort will be seen to, of course, and anything you require will be delivered to you, so as long as you agree to never leave without my express permission."

"And a guard, I assume," Kaiba muttered, smirking crookedly. "I'll agree to those terms, so as long as this gilded cage is comfortable and we can have some semblance of privacy."

Atemu smiled wryly. "I will ensure you will have that," he promised. "You will be as comfortable as I can manage it."

Kaiba nodded, not looking exactly ecstatic about it, but not too outraged either. He turned to his slave, speaking in quick, strange language to Atemu's counterpart who nodded here and there, glancing at Atemu thoughtfully and nodding again. Then he said something in answer, his tones so much like Atemu's own except so very foreign, making his master blink with surprise. They exchanged some more words, before Kaiba turned thoughtful eyes at Atemu.

"Yugi wants to know what happened to your legs," he explained.

Atemu face the young, pale slave's eyes steadily, and met with exact same steadiness, only somehow very different. Everyone knew what had happened to Atemu - the entire kingdom and everyone else who cared enough to ask. But, Atemu mused, maybe no one deserved to know it as much as this pale replica of himself. "Accident, when I was a boy," he said simply. "I fell and injured my back - ever since then any movement of my legs has caused me nothing but pain. I haven't been able to walk or even stand since."

Kaiba nodded slowly with very odd look about his eyes as he turned to Yugi again, translating the words quickly. The pale slave nodded in understanding, giving Atemu's legs a long look and then murmuring something that made Kaiba straighten his back so fast that it seemed to cause him some pain, making his clench his hand at his chest. As suddenly alarmed Yugi quickly moved to wrap one arm around his master's back, Atemu remembered that Kaiba had been recently injured - an arrow through his chest, wasn't it? The fact that he was walking so soon after Teana had healed him was a bit of a surprise, but not as much the strength in which Yugi supported his master, as Kaiba was overcome by the pain.

"Master Kaiba?" Atemu asked, as the man clenched his eyes shut. "Master Kaiba, do you require a healer's aid?"

"No, it's just… I'm fine, it's passing already. I just moved too fast," the man hissed, breathing in quick gasps through the pain while Yugi held him up. He took a deep breath and released it slowly before meeting Atemu's eyes. "Yugi wanted to ask if he could take a look at your injury."

"Excuse me?" Atemu asked, frowning and wondering if he'd insult the man's pride if he offered him a seat.

"Yugi is somewhat versed in the healing arts of our world - he's the reason I managed to live with a punctured lung, after all," Kaiba said, gingerly trying to stand on his own strength again. "He might be able to help."

Seth scoffed, looking uneasy as he watched Yugi carefully stepping back, but keeping his hold on master Kaiba's elbow, supporting him. Atemu didn't blame the high priest for his uneasiness - it was uneasy sight for him too. "Dozens of healers have tried and failed," Seth said suspiciously.

"But none from our world," Kaiba said, meeting Atemu's eyes steadily. "It can't hurt to try, but if you're against it, suit yourself."

Atemu looked between the two travellers from another world, thoughtful. Merciful gods, it was tempting. But he had been disappointed too many times to let his hopes get up. And as much as these two looked like people he knew - like himself, even - he wasn't fool enough to trust them so easily. They were too foreign, too alien, for him to dare to do that.

"Perhaps," he said finally. "But now I think you need you rest, master Kaiba," he decided. "There will be more time to talk later, once you are completely recovered." It would give him time to think about this as well.

"You might be right about that," Kaiba agreed with a wheezing breath. "It was... interesting meeting you."

"Indeed," Atemu agreed and turned to Marik, who had been watching the conversation silently, thoughtfully. "General, kindly escort your guests back - and have the steward arrange guest quarters for them," he said.

"As my lord wishes," Marik nodded, giving him a thoughtful look too, before turning to his guests, motioning them to follow.

Kaiba did try, Atemu could see that, but after couple of steps his legs seemed to give in under his weight, very nearly sending him to his knees on the harsh floor. Yugi was faster, however, and as Atemu watched with mild amazement - and maybe even some amusement - the petite slave scooped his much taller and no doubt much heavier master up, holding him easily in his arms in the very same manner Seth often carried Atemu.

"Damn it, Yugi!" Kaiba hissed and then said something cuttingly in their foreign language - only to be completely ignored by Yugi, who simply straightened his back and carried him out of the room, easy as anything.

"Well, that was interesting, wouldn't you say?" Atemu said, as faintly grinning Marik closed the door behind them, leaving the Pharaoh and the high priest alone. Atemu had to wonder how Yugi could be so strong, strong enough to so easily carry a man so much taller than himself. He had seemed so slim...

"You could say that again," Seth mused darkly. "It is also very suspicious, my lord. I hope you see that."

"I do, Seth, of course I do," Atemu answered, rubbing his hands absently together. Of all the things he had seen, this was indeed the strangest and no doubt the most suspicious thing he had seen. "Please arrange a guard for our peculiar quests and make sure they are always watched. I will also wish to have a talk with Marik alone in near future - I want to hear how he came about meeting those two."

"I'll arrange it," Seth nodded, slightly more relaxed now. He glanced at the pharaoh uneasily. "Do you really believe that they are from another world?"

"For now it makes as much sense as anything else - and I do hope that they are," Atemu mused. "Because if they aren't, then…" he shook his head. The concept of someone being able to create copies of him and Seth, even if so flawed ones, was somewhat worrying. "I suppose we will have to watch and see."

"There are ways of extracting information," Seth noted quietly.

"True. But consider this - what if they are not only our equals in looks, but also in power? And how would to react to interrogation or, worse yet, to torture?" Atemu asked, raising a single eyebrow at his cousin. Alone either one of them had enough magic at their command to destroy entire buildings - together they could've razed Memphis to the ground without breaking a sweat. If Kaiba and Yugi had even a smidge of their power, it wasn't the worth the risk.

"Of course. Safest course of action is to wait and see," the high priest agreed after a moment.

Atemu nodded, satisfied. It would take more than that to soothe Seth's ruffled feathers after the encounter, but for now Atemu was secure in the knowledge that a course of action had been decided and agreed upon. He hated disagreeing with Seth - considering how closely they were attached in life, it tended to make things very awkward.

He had to wonder if it was that way with Yugi and Kaiba as well.

xx

I suppose I should've written Atemu being more shocked, but... I just couldn't. To me he doesn't seem like person who gets shocked - or if he does, he doesn't show it. You don't get to be King of Games with a bad poker face.

My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


	5. Part 5

Warnings; Slash, Reality-timetravelish Alternate Reality, slash, some mild angst, slash, some OOCness, slash and, let's throw in a scifi warning there too just to be on the safe side. Oh, and geography and history fail. And very weird healing methods.

**Bladed Shield**

**Part V**

When he was honest about it, Bakura knew he had had half a hundred opportunities to escape. Master Kaiba and Yugi weren't that watchful of him, and they hadn't been since the ambush at the oasis. He had became something of a secondary concern after that, and really Bakura wasn't sure if they would've even noticed if he had taken off, to be honest, not now that Yugi was single-mindedly concentrated onto master Kaiba, who on other hand was pretty preoccupied with being injured.

He could've taken off days ago - though considering that they had been mostly in the desert at the time, it hadn't seemed like that smart thing to do, so he hadn't. He could've taken off when they had arrived at Memphis - it would've been easy to get lost in the crowd of the market as they had been riding through it. And then, when they had arrived at the palace and Yugi had been carrying master Kaiba and Marik had been busy arranging things - no one had even noticed Bakura was there, backing away a handful of steps and running away would've been a child's play.

But he hadn't, and though he told himself time and time again that he should, that there was no reason to stay, that he didn't even know why he hadn't taken off... he did know.

Because of that split of a moment in the desert, when he had been just another new slave among many on his way to be sold to the highest bidder and then to be worked to death in some mind, when he had thought everything was over for him... Yugi and master Kaiba had been there, looking at him and no one else, looking like they knew him - like he was someone they knew, someone important to them.

Kaiba had barely even haggled over the price when he had bought him off that caravan, and hadn't even glanced at the other, much better fit and much more amiable slaves when the trader had tried to suggest better bargains.

Of course, there was also the fact that, in that first night, Yugi had gone out his way to make Bakura's life little better. He hadn't been kind about it and when Bakura had tried to struggle against him it had been met with surprising strength, but he had still done it. He had washed and bandaged Bakura's worn feet, cleaned the whip lashes in his back, and fed him actual food, meat and vegetables and everything. No one had ever done anything like that to him before, but Yugi had.

All the while looking at him like he was a _someone_. Not just another wretched thief, worthless and useless and only good for hanging.

Bakura didn't like to admit it, not to even himself in the secret confines of his mind, but he had rather liked that. And more than anything he wanted to know why. What was it that master Kaiba and Yugi saw in him, that seemed so perfectly obvious to them, when no one else knew a thing about it - when Bakura himself couldn't even bring himself to dream of it? What did they think he was, to make him so worthy of that attention, that care? He wanted to know. No, he needed to know.

It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go, in any case.

It was strange, to find that in wake of all that, he actually found himself understanding - even accepting - the fact that with Kaiba injured, his importance had lessened. For some time he had even been a little worried, not that he'd ever say that aloud. When Kaiba had fallen down with the arrow on his chest still quivering with the force of the impact... his heart had really skipped a beat.

Bakura had honestly worried about the cold eyed bastard of a man before he had even begun to wonder what would happen to him and Yugi, if Kaiba died.

He knew better than to wonder about either of those two things, anymore. Anyone who had seen Yugi in the state he had crashed into at the sight of Kaiba falling would've learned that too. And it wasn't just the massacre, as horrifying and as magnificent as it had been, or even the way Yugi's eyes had glowed with rage, as terrifying as it had been. No. It was the way Yugi had fought fate back, and kept Kaiba alive against all odds.

Bakura rubbed his hand absently across his chest, shivering a little at the memory of how Yugi had snapped the arrow and pulled it out, before leaning over Kaiba and _licking_ his wounds. Oddly enough, that had been the creepiest thing he had seen that night. Even the glow of Yugi's hands over Kaiba's wound or the way he had kissed the unconscious man for what had seemed like hours didn't quite compare with the memory of him licking the wounds. It had been just...

The thief snapped out of his thoughts as the door clacked with the opening of the lock, and Marik stepped inside to hold the door open, so that Yugi could carry Kaiba inside. Despite himself, Bakura quickly stood up. "What happened? Is he alright?"

"I'm fine," Kaiba snarled, trying to struggle slightly only to have Yugi say something and carry him across the room, and to Marik's bedroom, by the looks of it deaf to his master's complaints.

"Master Kaiba moved too fast and agitated the wound, but he seems fine," Marik explained and lifted an eyebrow at him. "You're still here."

Bakura bared his teeth at the man but didn't answer, instead sneaking his way to the bedroom door to watch. It was a guilty pleasure, to watch how Yugi simply ignored the usual decorum of a slave towards his master, and went about caring Kaiba. There was brisk efficiency to Yugi every time he tended to Kaiba, and Kaiba, for all his complaints and glares, never seemed to really mind it. He certainly gave in pretty quick.

And then there was that, Bakura thought with something he couldn't quite name, as Yugi finished checking his master's chest and back and tucking him into bed. The pale slave spent a moment - just a small one, barely even existent one - there, just looking down to the man while Kaiba looked back, silent communication much too intimate and too complicated for Bakura to understand, but one he never could look away from.

And then, with oddly sad and guilty smile, Yugi bent down and kissed Kaiba. It slow and wet and yet somehow oddly chaste as Yugi kept his eyes open and alert as Kaiba let out a muffled sound of objection, touching his cheek like to push him away. Bakura had seen enough kisses in his life - shared them enough many times too - to know what a weird exchange this one was. For such a loving, romantic gesture there was surprising amount of guilt and objections involved - and yet, for all the awkwardness, Yugi still initiated it every time Kaiba as much as winced. And Kaiba, despite looking like he wanted nothing more than to push Yugi away, never did.

Bakura wasn't stupid, he knew that the kiss was more than it seemed to be - they had only started with the whole kissing thing after Kaiba had gotten injured, and Kaiba tended to pass out almost immediately after they did. So, it wasn't as much about intimacy, as it was about healing - part of Yugi's weird healing methods, like the way he had cleaned Kaiba's wounds with his tongue and Kaiba had barely bat an eye as he had done it.

The amount of reluctance involved, though, made the whole sight fascinating. There was a world of history between Yugi and master Kaiba - he would've given an arm to know what it was all about. But master Kaiba wasn't exactly forthcoming and had only glared at him when he had dared to ask - and Marik didn't know and Yugi didn't speak - so that was more or less that. Unless Kaiba let something slip and he wasn't the sort of man to let things slip just like that.

Bakura stepped back a little, as Yugi lifted his head. Kaiba's eyes had gotten a little bleary - they always did - though that didn't stop him from glaring at Yugi until he fell asleep. As Yugi pulled the covers over him, Bakura withdrew from the doorway. He knew that Yugi and Kaiba had probably both been aware of his presence, but it was easier to pretend when he wasn't actually caught spying like he had.

"You are bit of a freak, Bakura," Marik noted from where was sitting at one of the divans.

"Like people normally aren't," the thief muttered, making his way back to the window sill and sitting down to it. It would've been so easy, just to jump down and run away. "How did the meeting with the Pharaoh go anyway?"

"I don't know what master Kaiba has planned for you, but he and Yugi are staying here," Marik said, while Yugi glanced out of the bedroom and then withdrew back inside, closing and locking the doors. "The pharaoh has insisted that they remain his guests."

"Why?" Bakura asked, frowning.

"Too much likeness," the general answered, and gave him a look. "Why are you still here, really? It shouldn't be that hard to run away. I'll even look away as you do, I promise."

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you," Bakura glared back at the man. Whatever Yugi and master Kaiba saw in him, Marik obviously lacked the talent. The man didn't even bother to try and like him. "If you try to disappear me Yugi will find out, you know," he said, and felt a spark of dark satisfaction as the general frowned, wincing a little.

"Suit yourself," the elder man muttered, looking away. Then he stood up, looking like he intended to head out. "You can sleep in one of the divans when you get tired, but try not get your dirt onto them," he said, throwing a glance at him. "Can you manage that?"

Just for that, I'm obviously going to piss all over the place," Bakura answered cuttingly and the general snorted coldly, before turning and heading out of the room. "Good riddance, the thief murmured, turning his eyes away and frowning the heavy click that seemed to echo through the room as the door was locked from the outside.

"Bit useless, considering we're in the first floor," Bakura murmured, glancing out of the window. Marik seriously wanted him to take off, huh. Running his hand over his hair, he wondered not for the first time if Yugi really would know if he did take off - because if someone had extra senses and such, it was Yugi. He probably would know. Would he care though?

After moment of considering it, Bakura turned fully to the window, lifting his feet of the floor to hang them outside. He wasn't actually that tempted to leave - this was hands down the best places he had ever been in and he really didn't want to mess up a good thing. But the Pharaoh's palace was just few steps away. It would've been pretty interesting to take a look around, just for the sake of looking. Find out what's where and so forth...

He was just about to leave the window and see if he could sleep on the fancy divans, when the door to the bedroom was opened and Yugi stepped out. Bakura withdrew from the window quickly, not wanting to give the wrong impression, but the shorter slave didn't seem at all bothered by his location or the fact that he had been more outside than he had been in the inside.

"Bakura," Yugi said, his accent making the name sharp and oddly angular. He made a motion with his hand, beckoning the other slave to come closer - and more curious than worried, Bakura quickly obeyed.

Yugi was holding in his hand two leather satchels and as Bakura watched he opened one of them. It was the satchel where he carried his herbs, and while the thief wondered what was going on, Yugi placed several down onto the table, motioning them and looking grim to explain silently their importance. Bakura nodded slowly - he had seen Yugi chewing the herbs and, unless he understood the way Yugi's healing worked completely wrong, they probably had something to do with the fact that the other slave's kisses could knock master Kaiba nearly instantly into deep slumber - not to mention about the other thing his spit could do.

After motioning of several different types of herbs, Yugi opened the other satchel and handed Bakura a handful of gold coins. While the thief's eyes widened with shock, Yugi motioned at the money, then at the herbs and finally made a shooing motion towards the window.

Take the money, buy these herbs, go.

Bakura swallowed, holding onto the money automatically even though it felt like it was burning his hand. "R-really?" he asked. He was actually trusted with a task like this - with money, with _gold_? Just like that?

"Shoo," Yugi answered, motioning at the window again.

"Um. Can I... I mean, I'll never remember these all," Bakura said, motioning at the herbs, and when Yugi frowned at him he quickly resorted into signing what he meant - by gathering the leaves, stems and flowers Yugi had shown him, and pretending to tug them away. The paler slave seemed to understand it easily enough, and nodded briskly, closing the satchels and leaving the sample herbs to the thief.

"I'll... I'll try to be back before morning," Bakura said, carefully tugging the herbs and the money away. Yugi didn't seem to understand, but he nodded nonetheless, repeating his shooing motion before turning to head back to the bedroom where master Kaiba slept. Still feeling a bit shocked, Bakura stared after him until he closed and locked the door after him, before turning towards the window.

Apparently, Yugi did know and care.

"Seriously makes me wonder which one of those two is really my owner," Bakura murmured, before grinning to himself and launching himself out of the window. There was city to see, herbs to buy, and only so much time to do it. And, if he was quick about it, maybe he could even take a detour around the palace while he was at it.

His life was definitely starting to get better.

xx

Dumdidum

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	6. Part 6

Warnings; Slash, Reality-timetravelish Alternate Reality, slash, some mild angst, slash, some OOCness, slash and, let's throw in a scifi warning there too just to be on the safe side. Oh, and geography and history fail.

**Bladed Shield**

**Part VI**

The palace was different in the early mornings, when the cold of the night still lingered in the floor and people hadn't yet ventured out to start their days. True, there were already servants at work - and there were soldiers somewhere, changing between shifts as one group of soldiers left and another came to replace it, ensuring that the palace and all its priced occupants were safe and sound. But still. It was different - quiet not for the absence of sound, but because of how careful those who ventured out were, like trying to make the night linger a little longer, and to keep the noise of the day at bay.

Early mornings, when Atemu still slept and would for another hour or so, were the only time Seth had for himself.

That wasn't to say that he minded the lack of time or the loss of his own, private life. Things were for him as they had been for ten years now - he had long since gotten used to it. If someone had asked him if he was bitter about his life - and no one ever would, even Atemu didn't dare - he could've honestly told them that, no, he wasn't. His life carried a purpose so many others lacked. Even if he was a high priest only because of custom and not because of practice, even if he wasn't more than glorified nurse, even if his greatest purpose in life was to be Atemu's hands and feet... it was still a great purpose. It gave him a place in life - and not only in means of having a bed to sleep in and food to eat. He had a meaning.

And, for a bastard son of a defected priest and estranged brother of the former Pharaoh, that was something he hadn't ever expected to have.

He didn't really cherish the moments of quiet in the morning. He spent them sitting at the window of his and his Pharaoh's shared quarters, staring down to the gardens, blank faced and empty minded. There was little enjoyment for him in the listlessness of the moment - it made him feel empty, hollow. Purposeless.

If only Atemu had known how dependant his caretaker truly was of him.

Best he never find out. The physical strength that Atemu himself lacked was displayed in Seth, and because of that there was certain face the high priest needed to show - certain posture. Weakness of needs and dependency weren't included in it. He wasn't as much Atemu's hands and feet, truly, as he was his sword hand. And that had had to be steady.

Gods only knew how many fools challenged Atemu into duels, thinking themselves clever for it, thinking they had discovered an easy way to grab fame and fortune. Laws of the kingdom prevented Atemu from declining - not to mention about the pride and reputation of a pharaoh. They did not prevent him from having a proxy, however. Seth's value to Atemu was often measured in the blood he spilled on the arena before his eyes - Even if Atemu didn't see it that way.

Seth sighed to himself, running a hand over his hair, yet to be concealed behind the headdress of a priest. He would be soon demanded to fight Marik. It was a practice of strength that had more to do with political power than actual physical strength and the fame there in. Marik was powerful, physically and politically - and having him win the tournament of strength over and over was both good, and very bad for Atemu's position. Marik was, after all, the figure of power, strength and authority Atemu just didn't have the body for, and sometimes it was easier for people to respect that figure, than that of their actual Pharaoh.

And so, after each tournament and after each one of Marik's victories, Seth fought against him - to show not him, but those who were watching, that their Pharaoh had strength and might - only, it was on loan to Seth.

The high priest closed his eyes for a moment, just leaning his head back against the stone frames of the window and listening to the sounds of the garden. The quiet rustle of leaves in the wind that was barely there, the chirping songs of the birds that lived in the trees and were fed by the servant - the idle play of the water of the fountain, that rippled just within the view of the window. Peaceful sounds.

He wished he could sleep as long as the Pharaoh did. Just an hour longer, and he wouldn't need to listen this. It reminded him too much of those days long gone, in that village which was now gone, of his mother... there had been a little stream in the backyard of their house, merry little thing, where frogs and snakes lived in the banks. Seth could still hear it rippling, somewhere in the back of his head.

That was before Akunadin had jerked him into the palace life in idiotic attempt of claiming the throne - just few months after Atemu's injury. Back when people had thought that Atemu was unfit and that the throne would be empty after Akunumkanon's death unless someone stepped up to take it. That Atemu was insignificant and easily avoided obstacle in the race for the throne.

Back before Atemu had called gods down from heaven, and taken the crown. And before the young Pharaoh had, despite his weakness and despite being caught unguarded and helpless, killed Seth own father in self defence, when Akunadin had tried to take matters in his own hand.

Seth sighed softly, and glanced over his shoulder to the open doorway, that led into Pharaoh's sleeping chamber. Very few still thought back to the drama of those times. Those who did still often gossiped, that Seth served Atemu because he was either too scared not to, or because he was biding his time. They were all fools, but Seth let them think that. It was easier that way.

He had to wonder, though. What would the rumours be now, when master Kaiba and his so called slave Yugi had entered the palace and were going to stay.

Gritting his teeth and pushing the thought aside Seth stood up. He needed something to preoccupy his mind with, before he started thinking too much. He chose his usual morning activity, and begun setting the Pharaoh's clothing and jewellery ready, before checking that there was some fresh bandages. Once he was finished, he went about ordering food - Atemu would be awake soon, and he needed a good breakfast to start his day with. While waiting for the food to be delivered, Seth absently circled around the lounge area of their quarters, rearranging and cleaning the room as he went.

It was enough to keep him pre occupied, until Atemu called his attention by ringing the silver bell that sat beside his bedside. Sighing with relief, Seth left the meaningless tasks and approached the bedroom doorway. Atemu still lay in the bed, still covered by blankets and still, by the looks of it, asleep, but Seth knew better.

"Good morning, my lord," he greeted the ruler, before carefully pulling back the fabrics covering Atemu. The Pharaoh swallowed and said nothing, only sighed softly as Seth ran his fingers carefully over the bare skin of his legs, and then begun the morning routine of massaging life back to the painfully tensed limps.

Thanks to Atemu, he was very nearly as good as the official palace massager.

As he ran his fingers up and down, very carefully applying pressure here and there and coaxing the tightened muscles to ease, he marvelled not for the first time how normal Atemu's legs looked. Thinner than men usually did, of course - and paler, thanks to years spent in bandage. But aside from that, they were fairly normal. There was no unusual colouration, no odd scars or knots, nothing - and, aside from the easily cramping muscles, no one would've been able to tell how ruined they really were.

Seth finished the massage of each leg by pressing a kiss on Atemu's knees. If he had actually been a priest, he would've prayed that Atemu would've had a painless day - but he really wasn't, and he knew very little of prayers at all. "Are you ready to move to the sitting room?" he asked softly, rubbing his palms over the tender skin of Atemu's legs once more before withdrawing. "Or do you need to visit the lavatory?

"The sitting room will do. Thank you, Seth," Atemu sighed, and finally opened his eyes, smiling. "Thank you," he said again - because the decorum of a Pharaoh prevented him from saying anything more.

Seth understood though and nodded in answer before gathering the thin ruler into his arms and carefully. Atemu was still a little loose after sleep, and leaned his head against his shoulder as they went, leaning onto him even as Seth gently placed him down to the divan so that he could clothe the Pharaoh.

"What is my schedule for today?" Atemu asked, leaning back and closing his eyes as Seth begun carefully wrapping the protective bandages around his legs.

"Your first meeting will be in two hours - with the steward of palace of Abydos," Seth begun, easily listing the meetings that Atemu needed to attend to, before detailing the paper work Atemu needed to look over that day. In truth, there wasn't that much for him to do - Seth never let there be, as it was easier for everyone to have other officials working out the smaller things. Many still complained about how distant Atemu was as a Pharaoh because he didn't attend to every little thing, but Seth never let any of those rumours reach Atemu's ears.

Completing the few tasks left after the thorough screening was usually more than enough for Atemu at any case.

"I wonder if we will see our counterparts today," Atemu mused, while Seth took a robe and helped the Pharaoh into it. "I wonder what their lives are like, in the other world."

Seth glanced at him but didn't answer, and instead pulled the robe shut and carefully wound a golden belt around Atemu's waist to hold the robe shut. The pharaoh gave him a look and then smiled. "You really do not like them, do you?"

"I have yet to decide upon what I feel about them," Seth answered - only, it was a complete lie and Atemu knew it. He didn't like their counterparts.

But what Atemu didn't know was the fact that the counterparts themselves didn't bother him, or the fact that they existed. It was the atmosphere between them - so different from what was between him and Atemu, so completely different. And, most of all, it was the fact that master Kaiba, with his cold eyes and proud look, didn't seem to miss it in the slightest.

How the man could live without what Seth had, the high priest didn't know. And, what more, to have Atemu's counterpart as a slave, as a servant - even if one as strong and skilful one as Yugi? The very notion was enough to give Seth nightmares. Not to mention about the fact that the slave Yugi seemed to think that there was something he could do to heal Atemu's injury.

Seth hated that most of all. He knew he should've been hopeful and, if Yugi proved out to be as skilful as he seemed to believe himself to be, he should've been happy for the Pharaoh. But he couldn't be. It was only made more difficult for him by the fact that he knew, with the same painful realisation he knew himself and knew Atemu - that if someone could heal the Pharaoh, it would be the Pharaoh's own, mirrored self.

And then Atemu would stand and walk on his own two feet, would become the strong Pharaoh he had always supposed to be, become the beacon of confidence and power...

And what would Seth be, then? What would be his purpose after that?

Gods have mercy on him and prevent Atemu ever knowing how greedy he really was, how selfish.

"Please," Seth said, after finishing clothing Atemu by placing the light crown onto his head. "Eat something."

The Pharaoh smiled at him - and it was such a sad expression that for a moment Seth nearly panicked, terrified that Atemu could see into his heart, into the dark rot welling in there. "Have you eaten yet?" the young ruler asked instead of giving any sign whether or not he actually could. Seth relaxed a little, shaking his head and at the look Atemu gave him, he sat down to eat as well.

"Will you arrange my meeting with Marik today? It doesn't need to be official," Atemu said, as they finished the food together.

"Perhaps you would like to share your dinner with him?" Seth suggested. Atemu always ate more when he had company and lively discussion to distract him.

"Oh, that would be excellent. We should also invite master Kaiba," Atemu added thoughtfully. "It would work as a way of avoiding any bothersome rumours about him and his... slave."

"Indeed," Seth nodded, expressionless as he pushed his empty plate away, grateful to have finished eating before so completely losing his appetite. "I will have servant inform them of their invitations."

"Do not take it sound like an order. I do not wish to appear as if I want to control their every move," Atemu said, drinking the last sip of his watered wine and placing the empty goblet down. "Perhaps we should also arrange a tour for them in the city. Under guard, obviously, but the choices of where to go and what to see could be left to their hands."

"Good idea, my lord. It should ease their minds," Seth agreed and stood up to summon a servant to take the dishes away. "What do you wish to do now, my lord? There is still time before your first meeting."

Atemu thought about it for a moment before smiling. "Take me to the balcony garden. I wish to smell the earth."

Seth nodded his head and as he gathered the fragile ruler to his arms, he tried not to savour the feeling too much - tried not to acknowledge the fear that maybe soon... he wouldn't be needed anymore.

x

Today has been a brilliant day, I hope other people have enjoyed it too. And Seth suddenly became my favourite character of the story. I have no idea why.

My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


End file.
